Distrib TVN raises $200 mil in capital

Distribbery scores coup with Cablevision

NEW YORK — TVN Entertainment Corp., which distributes 35 channels of pay-per-view movies and events to cable operators throughout the U.S., has raised $200 million in operating capital through private-placement bonds.

TVN scored a coup two months ago when it aced out Viewer’s Choice to sign up the country’s sixth-largest cable operator, Cablevision Systems Corp., as a client for TVN’s PPV service, giving it access to 2 million Cablevision subscribers. The Cablevision account became available when Request TV, the large PPV distributor, went out of business.

But most of TVN’s clients are small cable operators who make deals with TVN to get them into digital programming at relatively low cost, allowing the systems to avoid having to rebuild their entire infrastructure. TVN provides what it calls a “turn-key delivery system” to these small operators, giving them everything from programming and marketing to technical support and billing services.